Video on Demand

About the film

Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change had its world premiere October 23, 2010, at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto. The complete film also streamed online simultaneously watched by more than 1500 viewers around the world. Following the film, a Q&A with filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and Dr. Ian Mauro included live call-in by Skype from viewers from Pond Inlet, New York, Sydney, Australia and other locations.

Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This new documentary, the world’s first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer “on the land” with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a warming Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.

Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change had its world premiere October 23, 2010, at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto. The complete film also streamed online simultaneously watched by more than 1500 viewers around the world. Following the film, a Q&A with filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and Dr. Ian Mauro included live call-in by Skype from viewers from Pond Inlet, New York, Sydney, Australia and other locations.

Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This new documentary, the world’s first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer “on the land” with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a warming Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.

Exploring centuries of Inuit knowledge, allowing the viewer to learn about climate change first-hand from Arctic residents themselves, the film portrays Inuit as experts regarding their land and wildlife and makes it clear that climate change is a human rights issue affecting this ingenious Indigenous culture. Hear stories about Arctic melting and how Inuit believe that human and animal intelligence are key to adaptability and survival in a warming world.

Community-based screenings of the film are now being organized across Canada. Stay tuned for more information, new blog posts and videos added to this channel regularly.

Please feel free to contact us should you like to organize a screening in your area. Email us: isuma@isuma.ca.

"The estimate came in a presentation on Wednesday before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in Timmins, Ont., as the federal regulator investigates how to close the digital gap between urban and rural areas." Globe&Mail ht

"This profound and unforgettable film, which premiered at Toronto's imagineNATIVE Film Festival this past October, helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it."

"The documentary is the first to ask Inuit elders to describe the severe environmental changes in the Arctic they are seeing and to do so in their own language. The tone of the film is intimate. The elders aren’t trying to cross a language barrier, or even speak to the Southern scientific community. They’re simply imparting their expert knowledge and wisdom – and the result will undoubtedly cause controversy."

"Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change explains how the thawing permafrost, shrinking ice and warmer weather of the Arctic affect its people. It also reveals the realities of indigenous and scientific thought, and what can happen when the two intersect."

"Kunuk and his collaborators have shown the world how the Inuit people have defended their traditions in the face of many threats, though the gravest of these may be emerging only now. Kunuk and co-director Ian Mauro examine the ways in which global warming is radically transforming Canada’s north."

"An innovative collaboration between Mauro—a 30-year-old Winnipegger with a PhD in environmental studies from the University of Manitoba who's now doing post-doctorate work at the University of Victoria—and Zacharias Kunuk, the 51-year-old Igloolik-based Inuit filmmaker"

"This early morning radio segment was broadcast throughout the Toronto region - from Barrie to Buffalo - and reaching a potential 8 million listeners. Hear Ian Mauro talk about the Inuit knowledge and climate change project and its findings."

"CBC's The National highlights IsumaTV's Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change multimedia on the eve of Copenhagen conference. The internet-based film project has been garnering significant media attention. With our film screening at COP-15, the world became aware of the work we are doing with Inuit elders, hunters, women and youth in the Arctic. In this posting, check out the CBC's coverage on their flagship news program The National."

We've worked very hard to get this video to the United Nations for COP-15. Here it is!!! Ukiutatuq Takuguk! is ready for the world to watch!!! It will be presented in Copenhagen at Denmark's National Gallery this upcoming week.

This past spring, we were able to sit down and interview Michaëlle Jean, Canada's current Governor General, about her thoughts on the Arctic, Inuit and climate change. Zacharias and her had an amazing exchange about elders, countryfood, northern communities, and the future of this cold albeit changing landscape.

Live from the Floe EdgeFrom an Inuit Point of View

Live
from the Floe Edge:From
an Inuit Point of View is
the world's first Inuit film produced expressly for distribution
through the internet.

Led
by Igloolik Isuma Productions founder, Zacharias Kunuk, Canada's
foremost northern filmmaker, Live
from the Floe Edge
uses Isuma's new video website www.isuma.tv
as a global media platform for Inuit to speak through the internet to
the future as they see it.

Live
from the Floe Edge
is the first film, the first chapter of a production series
to be distributed on IsumaTV throughout 2008-2010, presenting the
view from
the Inuit side
of environmental issues, climate change and social, cultural and
human rights challenges facing the arctic homeland in the 21st
century.

IsumaTV
presents this unique, innovative and extraordinary filmmaking process
through the internet.